


I took the stars from our eyes and then I made a map

by Lila82



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-24 23:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16185098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lila82/pseuds/Lila82
Summary: Klaus promised Caroline a thousand more birthdays.  She's determined to get them, even if it means raising the dead.





	1. You left me in the dark

It starts with a feeling.

Caroline’s skin feels tight, a thin trickle of dread creeping down her neck, settling in a heavy weight on her shoulders. The fine hairs at her nape crackle, heat sparking, there then gone. 

The weight lifts and it’s like it never happened, whatever it was, and she might even have believed it, if not for the chill settling in her chest. 

_Magic_.

Caroline knows magic. She runs a school for magical beings. She knows siphoning and expression, travelling and merging. She _knows_ magic.

But this – this is something else.

It’s more than a chill in the air or that ever-increasing feeling of dread. It’s like the world is turning and reforming, molding itself into something sinister and dark. Caroline shivers in the warm Virginia night.

Doing magic outside school hours isn’t a new violation, but this feels different. She can feel the strength of the spell all the way across campus. As she walks to the student dorms, she can see it all around her. The moon is brighter, the trees darker, the air weighted by magic. When she pulls in a breath, it’s like the spell pulls from her too, sucking the energy from the curse that set her life in motion. 

She walks a little faster as she crosses the wide lawn. Her school is full of talented witches, but there’s only one that could unleash a spell with the power to take the world down with her. 

Caroline raps her knuckles against Hope Mikaelson’s door. “Hope, open up please.”

It’s a courtesy, waiting for Hope to let her in. Before she opened the school, Bonnie charmed the doors to prevent students from spelling them to keep adults out, but Caroline likes to give them their privacy. She’s not so far removed from being a teenager herself. She knows the importance of having a space of one’s own to hide away from the world. So she waits, patiently, until a flustered Hope opens the door.

“Ms. Forbes! Uh, hi.”

Caroline peeks over Hope’s shoulder. Whatever ingredients Hope was using to set her spell have been cleared away, but even the open window can’t quite hide the smell of burned sage. Caroline crosses her arms over her chest and gives Hope a long look. “We need to talk.” 

Hope keeps her eyes carefully cast at the floor as she lets Caroline in. She still doesn’t look up as she settles on the edge of her bed, leaving Caroline to take the desk chair. 

A strained silence fills the room but Caroline refuses to break first. Maybe it’s cruel, to put the burden on a sixteen-year-old, but they both know Hope did something wrong. She wants her to admit it. 

It’s barely more than a minute before Hope’s squirming against her quilt. Caroline ducks her head to keep from smiling. Teenagers are nothing if not predictable.

“Okay,” Hope relents. “What do you want to talk about?”

Caroline makes an exaggerated show of sniffing the air. “You tell me.”

Hope shrugs. “I like the scent.” She watches Caroline with big blue eyes, wide and innocent and so like her father’s when he’s trying to get what he wants. 

Caroline knows that look, all the times Klaus tried to pull it on her. Too many times, probably. And then she remembers – she won’t see that look again. Klaus is gone, truly gone, and just like that she understands. 

“Oh, sweetheart, no.”

Hope’s mouth trembles, but she keeps her expression firm. “It’s just a spell.”

They both know it’s more than just a spell. “He’s gone, Hope.” 

Caroline’s voice cracks but she doesn’t try to hide it. She wants Hope to know that she understands. She’s lost her parents, her husband, and she also lost Klaus. She gets it, even if Hope doesn’t think that she does. 

Hope’s eyes narrow, drawing attention the high cheekbones she inherited from her mother. Her _dead_ mother. Caroline quickly realizes it’s more than grief holding Hope’s heart captive. This runs far deeper.

“Do you know how an Original dies?” Hope’s voice is soft – dangerous – like Klaus’ before he’d pounce. It makes Caroline sad and nervous all at once. “They die by fire,” Hope continues before Caroline can respond. “They burn from the inside out until they’re nothing but ash and smoke.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “They were the most powerful creatures to walk the earth and just like that – ” she snaps her fingers for emphasis “ – they’re gone.”

Caroline didn’t know, not exactly. She was there for the aftermath, but never the moment itself. She’s glad for it. If she’d changed her mind, looked back even once, she and Hope wouldn’t be having this conversation because Hope would be dead. 

“He wanted it that way,” Caroline tries but her voice sounds weak even to her own ears. Klaus hadn’t wanted to die before his daughter turned sixteen. He hadn’t wanted to leave her alone. But it was her life or his, and there hadn’t been another way. Caroline knows, if it had been one of her daughters, that she would have made the same choice.

“It should have been me,” Hope whispers, tears glistening in her blue, Mikaelson eyes. “The Hollow wanted me. He died to save me.”

Caroline takes a risk and moves to sit beside Hope on the bed, slowly, carefully wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Hope falls into her, burying her tear-streaked face in Caroline’s neck. They sit like that for long minutes, Caroline stroking Hope’s back while she cries herself dry. No words are spoken because there aren’t any to say. Caroline can’t ease Hope’s guilt. She can’t make Klaus’ sacrifice feel right. She can’t do anything but sit on this bed and let his daughter know that she’s not alone. 

Hope’s eyes are puffy when she pulls away, but her gaze is steady. “I’m going to bring him back.”

So much for progress. Caroline takes a beat to get her feelings under control, to remember that she’s dealing with a teenager and reason isn’t their strong suit. “Hope, we all miss him, but – “

“Don’t think that I don’t know.”

Caroline’s brow wrinkles. “I’m not sure what – “

Hope’s eyes flare, so much like Klaus’, that Caroline loses any advantage that she had. It’s difficult maintaining the upper hand when confronted with a mirror reflection of everything that she’s lost. 

“On his last day, I kept asking where my dad was. He was going to die and I was never going to see him again and he was nowhere to be found.” Her expression changes, mischief glinting where sadness used to lurk. “He was with you.”

Caroline knows that Klaus is dead. She said goodbye, poured everything she felt for him into one last kiss and walked away. She’d said she wouldn’t look back and she hasn’t, not really, but sometimes when she’s especially tired, or the girls have done something particularly frustrating, she can still feel the soft heat of his mouth against hers. Tears spring to her eyes and the wound rips open, six months of things she wouldn’t let herself feel pouring out.

“I get it, okay?” she manages after a few gulping breaths. “He made me promises too.” She tips up Hope’s chin so their eyes meet and holds on so Hope can’t look away. It breaks her rules, about using her strength to control her students, but this is a special occasion. “People die, Hope.” Caroline thinks of Stefan, dead on their wedding day, and the tears start slipping down her cheeks. “It sucks. It really, really sucks, but that’s the way it is. We don’t get to bend the rules because we’re sad. That’s not how things work.”

Hope doesn’t blink. “I’m the most powerful witch of all time. I _do_ get to bend the rules and I’m going to bend them for this. Always and forever, that’s what my family says. It’s what we believe. I’m not going to stop until we’re together again.” Her expression is triumphant. “You can’t stop me. No one can stop me.”

That’s not exactly true. There are powerful witches in the world. Maybe not as powerful as Hope, not on their own, but together, they could figure something out. They could at least stall her until Caroline convinced her to back down. But Caroline’s not sure she wants her to back down. She loved Tyler and Stefan purely and fully, but there, at the back of her mind, is a moment on a football field in the moonlight, _”I intend to be your last love.”_ She thinks she knew, even on the day she swore her heart and soul to Stefan, that there would always be an after with someone else. 

She likes this version of Caroline Forbes, the Caroline Forbes of _after_ , the beautiful girl full of light that became this strong, confidant woman raising daughters and building a life. But there’s a part of her, the part from _before_ , the part that Katherine Pierce couldn’t kill, that wants what she wants, consequences be damned. She wants this. 

Klaus’ daughter watches her with Klaus’ eyes and something shifts inside her. She’s a mother and a teacher and formerly a wife, and it’s been a long time since she’s had something of her own. She’s tired of being selfless. She’s tired of always being strong. She’s ready to give in.

“Okay,” she says softly, hardly believing the words she’s saying. “Let’s give it a try.”


	2. I'm always in this twilight

Hope Mikaelson might be the most powerful witch of all time, but even she needs some guidance.

Caroline sets a firm schedule. Hope can’t skip class or skimp on her schoolwork, but in her free time, she’s welcome to engage in research. Caroline even lets her look through Bonnie’s collection of rare grimoires but the search has been increasingly fruitless.

“It’s hopeless,” Hope says, slumping in her chair. They’re sitting in Caroline’s office while discussing their progress.

Caroline watches her from over a mug of tea laced with bourbon. She wouldn’t normally drink around students, but Hope is different. _This_ is different. She needs the liquid courage to get through these conversations. “Have you spoken to your aunt?”

Hope rolls her eyes. “You know what she’d say.”

Caroline does know what she’d say and takes a deep gulp of “tea” to ease the sting. Freya Mikaelson would tell them that if there were a way, she’d have found it. She’d stare at them with a mix of pity and guilt and Caroline would have to admit that what she’s doing is so, so wrong.

She’s giving a little girl hope where there is none, letting herself want things that could ruin lives. She’s trying to be the grown up, trying to set limits and guarantee that there’s a future when their search inevitably falls apart, but she doesn’t need someone pointing it out in stark black and white.

Caroline takes another sip of tea and tries to steer the conversation somewhere safer. “You knew this wouldn’t be easy. We can stop any time you want.”

Hope’s crosses her arms over her chest and steels her expression. “I’m not giving up until I bring my dad home.”

Caroline could push back, but she recognizes the stubborn jut of Hope’s jaw. If she couldn’t change Klaus’s mind, it’s unlikely she’ll have better luck with his daughter. “Fine,” she sighs, the fight gone out of her. It feels impossible to tell Hope no when she wants the same things. “Just don’t let your grades slip.”

Hope smiles, all smug teenage confidence. “You’ll see him again.”

“Goodnight, Hope.” Caroline’s careful to keep her voice level. It’s especially in moments like these that she needs to at least pretend that she’s the adult.

Once Hope is gone, she dumps the tea and pours a stiff whiskey. The first sip burns, but it’s also warm, and familiar, and makes her think of Stefan in the early days. It settles her nerves, just as he taught her, but her guard slips a little too.

Caroline might have played it cool in front of Hope but in moments like these, alone with her thoughts, her mind begins to wander. In moments like these, she lets herself remember, and regret, and most of all she _wants_. She wants great cities and art and music. She wants forever.

She stands at the window and rests her forehead against the cool glass, watches Hope make her way across campus to her dorm.

Maybe, just maybe, she’ll get what she wants.

 

* * *

 

They make it another week before it all goes to hell.

Caroline is in her office looking through a rare book she and her friends nicked during their Professor Shane days. It feels apropos, she thinks. It was with Shane that they first raised the dead. 

She lingers over an illustration of an old man bent over a crooked cane. Papa Legba, according to her research. The accompanying spell doesn’t seem complicated, even with its unusual ingredients, but Caroline doesn’t think it will work. Klaus terrorized New Orleans for generations. It’s unlikely that a local deity would agree to give him passage through the crossroads.

She turns the page and shoves her hair off her face in frustration. It would be so much easier if it wasn’t _Klaus_ they were trying to bring back from the dead.

She’s just reaching for her tea when she’s interrupted by a loud knock. She sighs and opens her desk drawer to dig out a bottle of whiskey and glass tumbler. After sixteen years of co-parenting, she knows that knock, would have heard the footsteps sounding down the hall if she hadn’t been so wrapped up in keeping secrets.

“Hi, Ric.”

He’s silent as he crosses the room to take the chair on the other side of Caroline’s desk. The only sound is the whiskey she’s pouring into the glass.

He thanks her for the drink and takes a long sip. Caroline fiddles with a pen to keep from looking at the accusation in his eyes, but it’s a temporary solution. He’ll wait her out until she caves.

“What are you doing, Care?”

She closes the book and forces a bright smile. “Just a little research.”

Alaric takes a closer look at the book. “On 18th century vodou?”

Caroline shrugs. “We need new electives for next year.”

“And you need Hope Mikaelson’s help planning our school’s curriculum?”

He’s got her there. Even her famous Forbes charm can’t come up with a witty response. “We always encourage students to seek out their own – ” Ric interrupts by depositing a slim book on her desk, an ornate “H” and “M” etched into the leather cover. “You stole from a student?”

“I found it in the library, but you didn’t answer my question. And since when does Hope Mikaelson have access to the Bennett Collection?”

Caroline’s tempted to point out that he asked two questions, but she knows better than to poke the bear. Alaric is her best friend and her daughters’ father, but he has little patience for all things Mikaelson. And she really needs someone to talk to.

“I gave her access,” she confesses. “We’re looking for a spell to bring Klaus back.”

Ric drains the rest of his glass in one gulp. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It’s not unheard of,” Caroline points out. “This isn’t exactly _your_ first life.”

“I also didn’t spend a thousand years terrorizing everyone that crossed my path!” His expression softens, his eyes too. “Caroline, you’re finally free.”

“You were there,” she points out. “You saw the sacrifice he made for Hope.”

“One good deed doesn’t cancel out a lifetime of murder and mayhem!”

His chest heaves and Caroline can sympathize, but only so much. She knows how much he loves their girls and what he’d do to protect them, but there are other girls to consider. The safety and security her daughters take for granted, she wants that for Hope too.

“I know what he is – what he was – but Hope should know her father.” She evenly meets Ric’s gaze. “Both my parents are dead. But I had time, Ric, time to set things right and let them go with no regrets.” Her voice cracks under the weight of her grief, her parents and her friends but especially Klaus.

Ric rubs at his forehead like he’s thinking on it, but Caroline knows that tell. He won’t like it, but he’ll give in. “And you,” he says softly. “This is about you too.”

Caroline can’t lie to him, this man that loves her children and held her in the long months after Stefan died. There was never romantic love between them but he’s her friend and her partner and she needs him. She’ll especially need him in the weeks ahead.

“I want this too.” She confesses quietly, but Ric seems to hear the meaning between her words. If he could bring Jo back, wouldn’t he leap at the chance? Wouldn’t he want his daughters to know their birth mother? Wouldn’t he want to grow old with the woman he loves?

Ric sighs heavily and drops his head into his hands. When he straightens, he looked resigned but not reluctant. “I know I’m going to regret this, but how can I help?”

Caroline smiles for the first time all night. “You have connections all over the world. Someone has to know something.”

 

* * *

 

People _do_ know things, although they vary in their willingness to share.

“What’s mine is yours,” Ric had said and given her full access to his collection.

Just thinking about it makes Caroline’s head hurt. Or would make her head hurt if she were still human. It could take years to sort through the vast collection of books, manuscripts, and journals, and she might live forever but Hope has limited time. 

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Bonnie’s incredulous expression is crystal clear through the Facetime link connecting them. The call was supposed to be their regular catch up about Bonnie’s adventures and Caroline’s mundane school responsibilities, and instead Caroline’s asking her to raise the dead. Bonnie’s grudges run deep and she isn’t wrong. After all Klaus did to the people she loved, Bonnie had no reason to help him in life let alone death. “My necromancing days are over but even if I still had access to that power, I wouldn’t waste it on Klaus Mikaelson.”

“It doesn’t have to be you,” Caroline points out. “Anything you know could help.”

Bonnie’s face goes very still, her eyes huge and liquid in her pretty face. A single tear slips down her cheek. “Enzo’s been dead five years, Caroline. Don’t think I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone you love. It’s not easy, but you have to move on.” Bonnie’s eyes narrow. “Shouldn’t it be Stefan you’re trying to bring back?”

It feels a little like she’s been struck, the force of the guilt that slams into Caroline’s chest. She _should_ be trying to bring back Stefan, and yet, here she is, calling on every favor she’s owed to resurrect a different man. She has her reasons, yes, but she isn’t ready to give voice to them, not quite yet.

“It’s not just about me,” she says softly. It’s not a lie. She chose Klaus and she’d make the same choice tomorrow or the next day and every day after until Hope’s father comes home. “When we lost our dads there was nothing we could do, and maybe it’s the same here but maybe not. I…” Her voice cracks and she stares at the ceiling while blinking back tears. “I want more for Hope.”

Bonnie’s forehead wrinkles, her resistance slipping. Caroline knows her words hit home. Their teenage years were rife with dead parents and they both remember how much it _hurt_.

“It goes against every law of nature,” Bonnie says. Since regaining her powers she’s practiced magic on the straight and narrow. Caroline knows it’s a big ask, including Bonnie in her plans.

“You did it for Elena,” Caroline reminds her. It wasn’t like she’d wanted Jeremy to die, but she wouldn’t have advocated for resurrection either. Back then, dead was dead. Or it was supposed to be. There were consequences, sure, but once the door was opened it feels impossible to close.

“Remember how that turned out?”

“Bon, I’m not asking you to perform the spell, just to ask around, point me in the right direction.” She pauses and does her best to make eye contact through the miles of ocean separating them. “Please.”

Bonnie deflates, her expression a mix of sympathy and defiance. “I’m going to regret this, but I’ll see what I can find.”

Caroline laughs, a bright, girlish laugh she hasn’t heard in months. Maybe even years. “Thank you!”

“No promises,” Bonnie adds sternly, but Caroline doesn’t care. It’s a start – a chance – and she can live with that.

 

* * *

 

It’s a few more weeks before Bonnie delivers any kind of breakthrough, a few weeks of flipping through old books and trying to ignore the disappointed look on Hope’s face. Caroline tries to explain that these things take time, but she also understands Hope’s impatience. Klaus’s daughter isn’t the only one eager to see him again.

Bonnie checks in regularly about meaningless things, like the winery she visited in Bordeaux, or the villa she’s currently calling home in Tuscany, but nothing about spells that raise the dead. It’s only when she jets off to Bali, conveniently without internet or cell service while she basks in a few weeks of yoga and mud wraps, that she shares any progress.

Damon Salvatore appears at his former home, looking both bored and amused when Caroline opens the door. He smirks as she gives him a long look, his mouth quirking in a way that makes her want to smack him.

“What do you want, Damon?” She sounds tired. She _is_ tired. Spending her free time poring over old books is hard on her eyes, and managing Hope’s disappointment is wearing on her soul. Her daughters have noticed her absences. She wants a break, from the school and life, but especially the promise she made. It shouldn’t be this hard, to give a girl her father back.

“Hello to you too.” He unwinds his slim frame and slides past her into the school. “Like what you’ve done with the place.”

Caroline follows Damon into the former living room, now a student common room. Damon wrinkles his nose. “No booze?”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes. He’s baiting her, and with her increasingly frayed nerves, it won’t take much to snap. “You can stop by Ric’s on your way out. You know, after you tell me what you’re doing here.”

He sprawls across the couch and watches her with cool blue eyes as he pulls a sheet of paper from his pocket. “I come bearing gifts.” 

“You didn’t need to come all this way.” Caroline reaches for the paper, and he might be human, but his reflexes are all vampire. He dances away before she can grab it. She grits her teeth to keep from lashing out. There are only so many times he can be one step ahead. “Damon, whatever it is, hand it over.”

“You wanna tell me why you’re not trying to bring my brother back from the dead?”

Caroline should have known better. She loves her friend, but Bonnie wouldn’t be Bonnie if she didn’t throw in a dose of judgy self-righteousness. “You talked to Bonnie.” She sinks into an armchair in defeat.

“I’m delivering a message from Bonnie.” He drops into the chair opposite hers, a familiar malice lurking in his eyes. He might have been tamed but he wasn’t defanged, not entirely. Not when it comes to his brother. “You were his _wife_.” His tone is accusing, his anger palpable. Caroline feels some of it herself. 

She wants Stefan back. She wants the life she was promised, the happy ending that was yanked out from under her before it even began. She can admit that this mission isn’t just about Klaus Mikaelson. Every spell, every lead, she’s searched for Stefan too. Two men devoting their lives to her – she could have gotten behind that kind of future. 

But she’s learned something from Ric’s books, about ancestors and spells and the power in blood. Stefan saved Elena and he saved his town and he’s at peace. There isn’t a part of him aching to return to the living, not even for his pretty young widow. But Klaus…Caroline can feel his rage from beyond the grave, the seething anger at leaving his daughter behind. And it’s that daughter that will bring him back, the magic in her blood and the determination in her heart. It’s _Hope_ that will bring her father back and Caroline’s only along for the ride.

“I’m still his wife,” she says quietly. “I knew him better than anyone, sometimes even you.” Her eyes are teary but her voice doesn’t waiver. She believes this, as much as she wanted to believe in forever the day she became Stefan’s wife. “He died to save us, Damon. He wouldn’t want to come back.” 

“Maybe you don’t want him to come back. What’s a little grief compared to giving it up for Klaus Mikaelson?”

Damon’s voice is low and mean, filled with grief. Caroline tries not to hold it against him. If not for her girls, she might be in the same place. Still, she lets her veins flare and her fangs slip down over her bottom lip. “Because you loved him, I’ll forgive you for that. But once, Damon. You say anything like that to me again and you won’t live another day.”

“Convenient excuse – ”

“He doesn’t want to be saved!” She presses her palms against her eyes to calm the instinct to tear out Damon’s throat. She doesn’t really want to hurt him, but the truth – _this_ truth – she can’t seem to tell it without losing control.

When she’s calm enough to speak normally, she looks at Damon again. The veins still flare but the fangs are gone. “He hated what he was, Damon. He’s dead. He’s at peace. He doesn’t want to come back if it means being a vampire again.”

She inhales a breath, her face smooth again and eternally young, and she takes a seat beside her brother-in-law. “Stefan’s gone, but a little girl lost her father. She has the power to bring him back. I’d still help her, even if there wasn’t anything in it for me.”

Damon’s mouth twists into an angry sneer. “So you can admit – there’s something in it for you.”

“My husband has been dead five years. I’m ready to move on.” Her voice drops to a teary whisper. “I deserve to move on.”

Damon watches her for a long time, eyes never leaving her face. Caroline resists the urge to flinch, to look away, to hide the conflicting emotions lurking under the surface. There’s guilt yes, but excitement too. She’s going to live for an eternity. She shouldn’t have to spend it alone.

“Okay,” Damon finally says and slides the paper across the coffee table. He looks pained and guilty, but resigned too. They have a long history together, but no matter how ugly and twisted, she’s family. They both know the sacrifices he makes for family.

“Thank you,” Caroline says and opens the note. It’s an address in Mexico City and a woman’s name: Maite Rivera, Mercado Sonora. 

“Friend of yours?” 

“Not sure.” Caroline studies the note, trying to figure out what Bonnie’s telling her. 

Damon makes a show of rising to his feet. “Well, my work is done.” He’s quiet as Caroline walks him out but he pauses before crossing the threshold. “He’d want you to be happy. Maybe not with Klaus freaking Mikaelson, but he wouldn’t want you to be alone.” Damon smiles at her, just a quick quirk of his lips, but Caroline thinks he means it. “I hope you get what you’re looking for.”

“Yeah,” Caroline says softly to the closed door. “I hope I do too.”

 

* * *

 

It’s a few more weeks before Caroline completes the arrangements for her trip to Mexico City.

The timing is unfortunate – the middle of the school year, right before fall finals – but she and Ric make it work.

It’s the girls that prove to be the more difficult sell.

“I don’t understand why you have to leave.” Josie fiddles with the hem of her school sweater, chewing nervously on her bottom lip. 

“We talked about this,” Caroline says and puts down the pajamas she was folding. “It’s a quick trip to help a friend. Elena’s going to take over test-prep duty.”

Lizzie rolls her eyes. “She means Hope Mikaelson. Since when do you give a crap about her?”

And then it clicks. This isn’t about finals at all. The girls are jealous that she’s focusing her attention on a child that isn’t them. Caroline shoves aside a stack of blouses and pats the bed. “Sit.” 

Josie drags her feet before flopping down, but Lizzie isn’t so obedient. She crosses her arms over her chest and sets her jaw, her blue eyes burning brightly against her pale cheeks. 

“Sit,” Caroline repeats. She’s using her mom voice and mom stare and while it’s clear that Lizzie doesn’t want to, she takes a seat beside her sister. “Talk,” Caroline says. “Right now.”

Lizzie glares at her. “We’re not idiots, Mom. Dad shot Hope’s father with a crossbow and you still convinced him to let us do that spell. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

Caroline had planned to hide the truth, the full truth, from her daughters, but in the moment, she can’t bring herself to lie. She remembers how it stung when her mother kept things from her, how much harder it made erasing the bitterness between them. She doesn’t want that for her own children. 

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll let you know what’s going on.” She wiggles between them and wraps an arm around each of their shoulders. “You both know how you came to be and the role I played in it. I wish you could have known Jo, but I’m so honored, honored and lucky, to be your mom.” She squeezes tighter, and to her surprise, neither girl tries to pull away. Her daughters let her lean on them the way they’ve spent sixteen years leaning on her. “Hope didn’t get that same chance. Her entire life, she’s been separated from one parent or the other, and now she’s totally alone. Her dad…we’re trying to bring him back.”

“Hope’s dad, he means something to you, right?” Caroline had expected a snarky retort from Lizzie, but Josie got there first. She lays a gentle hand on her mother’s knee. 

Caroline doesn’t tell them everything – no teenage girl needs a crash course in her mother’s sex life – but she does provide a sanitized version of her history with Klaus. “We…we had thing, a long time before you were born. It never really ended, even when he died.”

“I’m sure Stefan appreciated that.” Lizzie’s tone is sharp.

“Stefan was there when we met. We both loved other people before we got together, but it doesn’t change how we felt about each other.”

“It’s so weird that you’re still best friends with Elena, ” Josie says.

“Great, a new stepdad,” Lizzie adds. 

“One thing at a time,” Caroline says quickly. She glances from one girl to the other. “Are we okay?” This trip feels non-negotiable, but her daughters come first. If they ask, she’ll make that sacrifice.

“I hope you find him,” Josie says.

“Whatever,” Lizzie mutters, but she doesn’t say no. 

Caroline drops a kiss on each daughter’s head. “Thank you.” She takes their blessings and tucks them away in her heart. She’ll need them on the long road ahead.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, Elena drives Caroline to the airport. 

She’s unusually quiet, her dark eyes focused on the road rather than pinning a critical gaze on her friend.

“Spill.” Caroline could wait her out but there’s only so many minutes they’ll be in the car together. She doesn’t want whatever Elena has to say weighing on her conscience during the long flight to Mexico.

“What you’re doing, are you sure?” Elena glances at Caroline, her eyes wide and searching, tempering Caroline’s worst urges like she did most of their lives. 

Caroline thinks she understands what Elena’s really asking. For years they wanted nothing more than Klaus dead and now that he’s finally gone, she’s risking nearly everything to bring him back. It’s a risk that puts more than her heart in danger.

“On his worst days, did you ever believe Damon couldn’t be saved?” 

“No.”

Caroline smiles, a little watery, but wide and full of hope. “So yeah. I’m sure.”

Elena turns back to the drive and Caroline follows suit, watching the road as they inch closer to the airport, to Mexico, to the future she’s always been denied.

It’s no longer a maybe – she’s going to have it all.

**Author's Note:**

> You guys, there were so many other ways "The Originals" could have ended, and nearly all of them included some kind of Klaroline end game. But since we didn't get it in canon, fic will have to do. Or in other words, I'm gonna write a few thousand words and fix what Plec broke. Title courtesy of Florence + the Machine's "Cosmic Love". Enjoy.


End file.
